Sensory processing articles from across Nature Portfolio

A combination of slice physiology, in vivo optogenetics, and behavioral analyses shows that the cortical-cortical connection between bilateral anterior cingulate cortex facilitates pain perception and enhanced anxiety-like behaviors associated with acute and chronic pain in adult mice.

To understand speech, our brains have to learn the different types of sounds that constitute words, including syllables, stress patterns and smaller sound elements, such as phonetic categories. Here, the authors provide evidence that at 7 months, the infant brain learns reliably to detect invariant phonetic categories.

Animals respond rapidly and precisely to a variety of sensory stimuli, but the neural mechanisms supporting this flexibility are not fully understood. Here the authors describe a model of adaptive sensory processing based on functionally-targeted stochastic modulation, and find evidence for this co-variability in macaque V1 and middle temporal area.

A study dissects the neural circuit through which pup cries induce oxytocin release and maternal behaviour in mice.

In Drosophila melanogaster, a neuronal pathway is found that mediates the effect of dietary protein ingestion on arousability from sleep.

Saccades can systematically modulate neural activity in multiple auditory brain regions in humans.

Infant attachment to the mother in rodents and monkeys is shown to rely on regulation of hypothalamic oxytocin release by a serotonergic projection from the raphe nucleus.

A new study examines thalamic innervation of cortical layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons and models how this thalamic connectivity affects visual responses in these cells.

Deletion of Gabrb3, which encodes the β3 subunit of the GABA_A receptor selectively in pyramidal neurons of developing mouse sensory cortex, increased contralateral connectivity, network synchrony and sensitivity to tactile stimuli, suggesting that this receptor is involved in refinement of interhemispheric sensory pathways.